


As Other Birds

by crowroad



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Post-Episode: s12e20 Twigs and Twine and Tasha Banes, Psychic Abilities, Season/Series 12, Souls, Spoilers, Supernatural Summergen Fic Exchange, Supernatural Summergen Fic Exchange 2017, Twins, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:57:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowroad/pseuds/crowroad
Summary: Two sets of brothers, a pair of witch twins, and the Pennsylvania woods. Or: what to make of a diminished thing.





	As Other Birds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indefinissable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefinissable/gifts).



> Written for [Summergen 2017](https://spn-summergen.livejournal.com/272995.html?view=6195043#t6195043); thanks to the mods!
> 
> withthedemonblood wanted Winchesters and Baneses, post-12 x 20; thank you for the great prompts! Thank you to [laughablelament](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughableLament/profile), as always. 
> 
> Loosely based on this true story and song: [Jacob’s Dream](https://bluegrasstoday.com/the-story-behind-the-song-jacobs-dream/)

There’s a rip in the world, and all the angels are dead. 

Not all of them, Dean says, grips the wheel. It’s like there’s a knife to his throat, grim line, a slaty horizon over green farmland off the west.

We can hope, Sam says, watches blackbirds flap up and thinks of one looking up at him (or no, not a bird at all, but those eyes--< i>this one’ll follow you, demon-boy, this one’ll follow.)

They’re motherless again, and darkness is off-leash in the world, but they’ve got other shadows to chase. Or so Dean said, sort of.

They drove all night, to stop people dying in these woods, hearts hollowed out as old trees.

*

I-76 to 30: the woods along the road have teeth, eyes; mountain blues and low weather.

Dean, Sam says, and Dean’s hard shoulders take the exit, roll into the country like so many countries before it, though they’re older now.

You’re tired, man, Sam says, and we’ve been through—why’re we here again?

Because people are dying, Sam, Dean says, and it’s not so clear which loss it is makes him sound like that, mother or little brother, the one who’d been afraid to lead.

It’s something.

Because of an old ghost story, Sam says.

I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Dean says. 

*

These mountains are so haunted. Two boys, brothers, lost, twined into a tree just like those Civil War soldiers a state over, clutching at each other in the wildwood, waiting on a rescue that never came; blue as juniper in the spring chill.

Their little hamlet called in a witch, a dowser, a psychic, an army of volunteers to tramp the deeps of the Allegheny, calling, for only screech owls and thunder. 

Their parents wailed. Hamlet put up a monument when they finally found the bones, and the storytellers caught quiet at the spirits, knitted them all up.

*

Do ghosts have ghosts, Dean says, sort of to himself.

Sure they do, Sam says, we know they do, and thinks about the places on the map, Black Lick and Blairsville, Blue Knob and Lovely (and Lovely). Thinks about farmhouses hunkered on hills and doesn’t want, scythe and chain and memory, to ever go there again.

The motel has cups with little pitchforks, strange-smelling soap in a hot, hard shower. 

Sam thinks of Cas and wants to lie down. 

Eventually he does, his brother breathing slow in the next bed.

*

Shanna Whysong, out of the Bedford County Sheriff’s, is greenish-blond, smooth-hipped and -skinned, maybe 40; Sam can’t tell anymore. Has a nice shrug, takes them in stride.

Three heartless dudes, but it don’t really look like claws and teeth, Dean says, and doesn’t say: skin all stiffened up like bark. Eyes hollow, feet rooted to the ground.

Didn’t know if the Feds’d be into this, Shanna says, probably, we got a wolf. 

In Pennsylvania, Dean says. 

There’s been some talk about re-introducing them, Sam says, but—

Stranger things have happened, Agent, says Shanna, and throws him (or no, Dean) what might be a wink, I’m sure you know that.

It’s not a great mystery, sometimes, that even the law knows there are mysteries of other orders, is what Sam thinks. Now more than ever.

Maybe a serial, Shanna says, right?

She lets them see the bodies.

*

Outside in the street they bump shoulders and step off the curb and see some friends, leaning there on the twin-rig like nothing has ever touched them.

What the—Dean gets out.

Boys, Max says, and waves a hand before them, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so strange that his dead sister is standing right next to him, bright as a freaking wildflower.

Hey, Alicia says, and Sam catches a flicker, like he can see through her clothes, of kindling and bone.

Overhead, a sunbreak spills out crows.

*

Later, Max sits stiff between them, one hand resting on the center of his chest, coffees into which Dean has already poured steaming up on the table.

You can’t do this, man, Dean says, have a sister with no—

I can, Max says, and you oughta know.

How’d you—

Max just looks at him, and Sam throws his brother a subtle-ish elbow, nudges him good under the four-top.

You shut the door? Dean says, and Max looks at him again:

Would you?

Sam tries: Max, man, this is gonna—

I didn't ask you, man, Max says, but he puts his palms flat on the Formica.

He doesn't look drunk on power, or anything else, hands clean and fingers bare and eyes the way they’ve always been: kind of a storm.

Look, I get it, Sam says, your mom, your sister—

You don't, Max says, but I know you're trying. I mean—

Sam tries to duck it, but there it is, the mothergrief, the brother-or-sistergrief, right there between them like hot wire. He can feel Dean next to him, just strung with it.

I’m sorry, Max says, maybe you do get it.

Alicia, fresh from the motel and bright as a cardinal: get what?

*

The waitress, PA punkwaif in a black-dog t-shirt, refreshes the coffee, takes a look at their faces and beats feet.

They called a witch in on the job, back in the day, Sam says, low, and then a psychic farmer. 

Dean twitches. The twins look gratified.

Yeah, Max says, we know.

So what’s offing people now, Dean says, and shifts, and slumps, and reaches for his pocket.

Look, Max says, and points at his sister, and Alicia makes a motion with her hands, twines her fingers round her own wrist like bittersweet on a trunk, says, those two boys couldn’t let each other go, and their parents couldn’t let them go, and the witch wanted them, and the psychic farmer tried to help. What happened was—

Kind of a spiritual clusterfuck, Max says, smirks, and Dean spits out a mouthful into a napkin.

Alicia smiles at him, and her voice is the same as it always was: that’s what’s happening here. Let us help.

 _What_ is happening here, Dean says, and Sam, thinks, sudden, of all the things his brother never consented to. All the alliance; all the witchery.

Vics had all been cutting down trees, Sam says.

Yep, Dean says, and Max leans in: so those kids got lost in the woods all those years ago, but they didn’t die; they got found by the witch, who kept them for her own. Led the searchers astray, conjured bodies for them to find—

Max stops, waves a hand in front of his sister’s face, and Sam watches her freeze, get held out straight; branch in a stiff wind.

Max says: when she finally died, the brothers did too. But you know it’s not permanent, that death; when their trees were defaced, cut down, they woke up. Now they’re taking the hearts out of whoever comes close. Barking them up. Protecting their turf. 

_Their_ trees, Sam says, but it’s not like he doesn’t get it, not like he doesn’t see.

So, Dean says, careful, what do we do then--if not burn ‘em?

Magic them of course, Max says, and snaps once in front of his sister’s face, send them back into the earth they came from. 

Sam feels Dean’s ribs next to his, little bit of a shudder.

Alicia blinks awake, bright-eyed, leans right into her brother, and nods.

*

Redbrick Chamber of Commerce. Shadows in the afternoon.

Baby-cradled along to the pitchfork motel (and guest house, of hideaway hollow, Sam jokes), Dean breathes fogfire onto the windshield.

That witch made herself some twig children, he says, that’s why Max—

Yeah, Sam says, I know.

_But where did their souls wander off to._

Goddammit, Dean says, if we’re not trying to get Mom back, or Cas—

Or Jack, Sam says—

Then we oughta, Dean says, and doesn’t finish, and pulls into the lot and lets Baby breathe out, begin to tick.

Sam sighs.

Sure, Dean says, witch and his dead sister; guess we could do worse.

Brave freaking new world, Dean says, and off Sam’s side-eye: _I read._

Or he doesn’t say that, but the years do, and don’t they talk a lot these days.

They do.

*

The sheets are both soft and stiff. Water in a pitchfork cup trembles off a truck in the parking lot.

Sam has maps open on his phone: Brothersvalley, Beaverdale, Johnstown of the great flood. Mountain and river and wood. 

Sam listens to Dean snore soft, and drops down over his little screen and dreams, two brown-haired brothers and the shining path into the trees, into the dark, each step aglow with fungi phosphorescence, timber and breadcrumbs, the mercy of a way home.

*

Sam wakes to a birdsong alarm, brushes his teeth, wonders at Dean grousing in the shower.

Got a headache, Dean says, dryswallows something from the kit, lets Sam steady a shoulder, look him in the eye.

Over coffee, they remember:

While Alicia’s was in the women’s, or at the motel, Max hunched over their table and drew them in.

I just softened it up a little, Max says.

What? says Sam.

Glamoured up your memories a little, because I knew—

That we’d judge you for not burnin’ your sister? Dean says, for—

What were you—Sam starts, and looks down at Max’s hands, tries another tack: does she know? Does Alicia know she’s—

Like you guys can talk, Max says, and they sit, shoulder to shoulder, Sam feeling Dean’s hard breaths, his witch-weariness, his weariness.

Yeah, Sam says, but—

Max’s hand passes over his eyes, then in front of their eyes, and things go a little cloudy again. 

We can work this one together, Max says, it’s up our street.

Sam pours sugar into the hot black of his cup. 

Yeah, he says.

Sure, Dean says, beside him, guess we could use some witch-business for this one. 

Over coffee they remember.

That was yesterday. 

*

The parents of the missing boys were suspected of murder, then cleared. The witch followed the ley lines; the dowser the creek as it bore underground. The dogs followed the scents, the searchers the dogs and the traces and the echoes of the mountains. The psychic farmer followed his dream, the one that knew the way.

Alicia knows the way, tree by tree by tree, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. Sam sees, flashlight and moon, the forest working under her North Face windbreaker, the hollow place of her young heart.

Shh, Max says, and they stand, salt-handed, weapons hard at their backs, in their heavy-toed boots.

Boys, Max whispers. 

Boys, Alicia whispers.

And next to Sam Dean shouts: you can come on out now.

Sam doesn’t call out: _I dreamed of you._

When they stand in a circle, Max calls them out, and Alicia calls them out, and all Sam can see is trees, forever kind of forest, and he doesn’t know what his brother sees but the fire he lights goes sodium-gold in the dark. 

Sam! Dean shouts, and there’s a sharp scent like birch, like treesugar, like snow.

The language that comes out of Max gets tipped with fire. The little hands that come out of the dark snap off all of the light. 

*

Lost shoes, birches, a dead doe. That’s what Sam read in one of the ghost stories. That’s what the farmer dreamed about, before he found the way. The woodpile of their bodies.

Sammy, Dean says, hold still. 

It freaking hurts.

Hold still, Alicia says, and he can smell her breath, birch beer and cherry, and feel her hard little hands at his cold heart.

Oh, god—is what he gets out.

Shh, Max says, and the ground is cold at Sam’s back, and overheard the northern stars.

Just a little more—Max says, and Alicia’s hands move away, and Max’s hands move in, and warmth sap-bursts from between Sam’s ribs and pushes him up, up into his brother’s shoulder, his arms, sets them both back hard against the trunk of a tree.

What the—Dean shouts, but he clutches Sam up, and he pulls Sam up, and they stand, let Max brush the bark off their shimmering skin.

*

Little hands, Sam thinks, in the back of the twin rig. Buzzy with aftermath and what—

his heart feels alright, and his, and no part of him left behind.

Are they—Dean’s saying, and Max eyeballs him, asks if he's feeling OK, and Dean says no, not really, and Max, driving, slaps the other palm on his forehead, just like that: I can make it better. 

Dean lets him. You can't not let Max do anything, is what Sam knows. You can't not be witched.

They’re back in the earth, Alicia says, bright as a pool.

The rig rolls over rough road, catches a rock and tosses it up.

In the roots of the trees, Alicia says, where they came from.

*

Someone, Shanna Whysong said, vandalized these trees. Carved hearts in ‘em. Then someone else cut ‘em down. Guess it was too much for the ghosts.

Sam thinks on that, sits across from Max and studies the storm that’s always been there.

Sam says: is this what it’s gonna be like, you and Alicia like—

Like all those witches and their children, Sam doesn’t say, but Max hears, he can tell.

How’re you keeping her in the dark, Sam says.

I didn’t go darkside, not really, Max says, picks up the juice he’s not drinking, I can give her everything she needs.

Sam leans in close: her soul?

Maybe that too, Max says, I’ll let you know.

Dean comes out of the men’s, Alicia out of the women’s. 

Alicia sits down next to her brother, sets a hand over his while Dean slides in next to Sam.

I'm not like other girls, ya know, Alicia says. 

I'm not like other girls either, says Max, and his hand moves, liftoff-soft:

_Forget, forget, forget._

*

There’s a rip in the world, Sam thinks, absurd, and all the ghosts have fallen into it. Dean called out for their mother in his sleep. In the morning, he doesn’t remember.

At a diner next to a white automotive barn, Shanna buys them pie, shoofly and blueberry, teaberry ice cream, while the twins hide away in their rig, maybe take to the road.

I grew up here, she says, my great-grandmother was a dowser; my grandfather had dreams. You think I haven’t seen what these woods can do, these mountains? You think I don’t know? 

I’ll bet, Dean says, but now he’s food-calm, Sam can tell, pie and that plate of chicken and fat noodles, and the bruise between his eyes a greenish trace.

It’s just a matter of what you can tell folks, she says, which versions of the old spirit stories are—

Respectful enough of their memories, Sam says. 

Yeah, Shanna says, and pushes her pie plate in Dean’s direction.

Wolf, Shanna says, and winks.

*

Nephilim have walked this earth, left coalfields in their wake.

Once there were loggers here, and wolves crouching in the old growth.

Signal fires lit in the woods, snowmelt roaring off the creek.

Everywhere now, monuments to the missing: mothers and fathers and brothers; ghosts.

*

Out of the woods, two boys. That was Sam’s dream.

Glimmering sky now over Pennsylvania. Pitchfork motel.

Over coffee they remember.

We worked a case with the twins, Sam says, as if he’s gotta journal it out loud or something. Oddfellow-local latte balanced in one hand, then on the dash.

Dean: We can't have. One of them is dead.

Sort of, Sam says.

Those kids, Dean says, and it don’t matter which ones he means.

I remember, sort of, Dean says, or I remember not remembering; it's like—not like with Rowena that time, it’s something else. 

Yeah, Sam says, we got—

Some kinda weird witch hangover, Dean says, damn it, and pulls out, and drives, and the blackbirds go up, and Sam passes a hand over his tired eyes.

Sammy, you OK?

Yeah, Sam says, I think, and plants the hand over his own hollow place and drums once, you?

Yeah, Dean says.

_I think we are. Or maybe they are; all the lost._

The plains are calling them home, is what it is, and darkness is off-leash in the world, and they go.


End file.
